


The High Wandering Flame and the Time Counter

by RedHorse



Series: Tomarry/Harrymort prompt fills [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Magic, Harry is a god, M/M, Tom is his kidnapper, dorea's prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16402673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: In a world without magic, Tom Riddle’s quest for immortality starts with kidnapping God. God -- who still thinks of himself as Harry -- has been doubting his suitability for his divine Opportunity, and his melancholy has reached such depths that his kidnapping comes as something of a relief.





	The High Wandering Flame and the Time Counter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miraculous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miraculous/gifts).



> This story was written for my favorite Dane. The title is my nod to Danish myth and its fondness for kennings, and a literal translation would be “The Sun and the Moon.”
> 
> Thank you to [Cutie_314](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cutie_314/profile) for beta reading!

At the gates, Tom hesitated. It was one thing to formulate the plan, power and immortality its object, and another to risk his mortal life, which was certainly better than nothing.  
  
For a moment the cost-benefit analysis seemed too nearly in balance to warrant taking the first — final? — step which would commit him, wholly, to his task.   
  
But Tom knew the plan, and trusted himself and his ability to carry it out implicitly. So he walked forward. The gates, towering and opalescent, parted automatically.   
  
On the other side an angel was waiting. He had red hair and wore scruffy blue robes. His wings were tucked against his back and he was eating bread and jam.   
  
“Oh, hello,” said the angel, straightening at the sight of Tom. He looked Tom up and down. “Human, early 1900s, male. Right-o. What can I help you with?”   
  
“I request a private audience with the god,” said Tom in the imploring tone he’d carefully practiced. He held up the glittering binding, wound into his palm in a handful so at first glance it appeared to be ordinary jewelry.   
  
The angel wasn’t impressed. In fact, the glimmer of interest he’d shown at first evaporated and he literally yawned. “O’course. Another pilgrim, right. You go straight and make a left when you see the door. There’s a sign in case you forget. He’s always in the Potter’s Shed, never the Great Palace.”   
  
None of this made sense to Tom, but he nodded anyway and followed the direction the angel indicated to be ‘straight.’ The entire tableau was murky, the foggy brightness that had thickened during Tom’s ascent nearly impermeable here, but it cleared in misty waves as Tom walked so that he could see several feet in every direction, including immediately in front of him. The path was paved with pearls. The thought of literally walking across so much wealth made Tom shudder in anticipation. It felt like a confirmation of his choice, and steeled his resolve.

The fog cleared to reveal a massive castle that appeared naturally formed, like coral or something carved by a giant hand from a single block of ivory. It spiraled upward what seemed to be a dozen stories. Gauzy curtains fluttered in windows that had no panes. Of course, here, there wasn’t an insect or raindrop or harsh ray of sun to be concerned with. 

On the surprisingly ordinary-scaled door, a handwritten sign was tacked. “God this way.” Below the message, an arrow pointed to Tom’s left. Amused, he turned.

The Potter’s Shed did appear to be more than a shed — more of a cottage — spilling over with all variety of plants, including the sparkling vines that had climbed the palace walls, and the softly glowing yellow blossoms alongside the path from the gates. There was a row of fruit-bearing trees unlike anything Tom had seen on earth. Amidst them, on a pillowy mound of grass, sat an ordinary looking person of indiscriminate age and oddly messy shoulder-length black hair. He juggled three things that might have been apples if they weren’t glowing with the muted radiance of rubies.

Tom had expected to walk with his head bowed down across a mile of polished floor to a throne, and kneel there to make his plea. But instead he was clutching a decorative iron fence and trying not to be second guess his decision to come here altogether, since apparently the god was a mad man-child with a smudge of heavenly dirt on his cheek and a leaf in his hair.

Tom cleared his throat. The god dropped the apples, but before they could hit the ground they rerouted and dropped into the palm of his outstretched hand. Tom’s throat closed with longing at the sight.

Hastily, and reminded of his objective, Tom dropped to his knees. “I’m a humble pilgrim,” he said, borrowing the angel’s word. “I bear a tithe.”

He bent his head and waited.

The god sighed. “I can’t help you.“ He sounded disappointed about it. “I have a policy against granting people power and influence. You see, the people who ask for it usually aren’t the ones who should have it.”

Tom’s heart stuttered. “I—I don’t—“

“Yes you do,” said the god. He sounded kind, like he was speaking to a child. Tom clenched his teeth. “I know, you see. It’s part of being God. I see the true heart and desire of all upon whom my eye should fall. Or put more succinctly, I know what you want, Tom. And I can’t help you. Would you like to keep your tithing? We can just pretend like this never happened.”

Tom surmised that the telepathy involved must be limited to broad strokes, since the god didn’t seem to know Tom’s _specific_ ambition or plan. He considered his options.

“I am in the presence of God,” he said eventually. “I can’t leave without granting a tithing to him.”

“Very well. Please stand up at least. That grass will leave terrible stains on your trousers.”

Tom did, with careful grace, though he felt as close to awkward as he could. “Thank you,” he said stiffly. The god had stood too, and was straightening his white robes, which were in fact riddled with grass stains. He put the ruby apples in his pocket and walked toward Tom with a tight, polite smile.

“All right then. What is it you have?”

Tom thought the god was more pleasant looking up close. When one got past the hair and the dirt smudges he had a lovely, dark gold complexion, strikingly offset by bright green eyes. His robes were sleeveless and his arms were nicely defined by lean muscle.

Tom found himself meeting the god’s eyes as he held out the binding, and then studying his face as he looked down at the offering in Tom’s palm. His eyelashes were dark and long.

“Ah,” said the god, in the tone of someone who is seeing something surprising, and then he looked back up at Tom with a smile that transformed his face into something truly unearthly. Tom’s breath caught.

“It’s simple. Quite to my tastes, really. Usually people bring me such ostentatious things. Is it a necklace?”

“A bracelet,” Tom said, a rough, urgent murmur.

“Put it on?” asked the god, and held out his left arm.

The fence was still between them, but they stood near enough it was simple for Tom to reach out and gently steady the god’s arm with a light clasp. The god’s skin was sun-warmed and pliant, quite human. Tom tried not to tremble with eagerness as he began to wind the binding tightly around the fine bones of the god’s wrist.

“Unusual,” murmured the god. He appeared mesmerized by watching the flat band of metal begin to envelop his wrist, coil after coil, taut enough his skin was the slightest bit compressed, but not uncomfortably so. Tom had practiced on himself a dozen times and knew exactly what it would feel like.

“It’s one of a kind,” Tom promised, a tremor running through him as the binding made its final pass and he clutched the end of the chain between his thumb and forefinger. It nearly slipped free in this last essential moment, but Tom pressed it down instead and it sealed against the god’s flesh and power with a flash of bright light.

“What—“ began the god.

“Be still,” said Tom, reaching into his pocket for the two pieces of silk. The god’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move. 

“What do you think—“ he began again, this time scathing.

“Be silent,” said Tom, then wound the gag over the god’s mouth, smirking at the sight of the furious green eyes above it as he knotted the silk firmly at the back of the god’s head.

Tom had anticipated the obedience but not the delerium that would come with it. His breath was short with the thrill of it. He took the larger piece of silk and blindfolded the god, speaking fervently as he did so.

“I have bound the power of your body and silenced and blinded you. Do you know what that means?”

The god nodded, expression impossible to read with so much of his face covered, but his chest heaved and his hands clenched.

Tom leapt the fence nimbly and held the god close to him with an arm around his waist, which was firm and narrow beneath the robes. “Take us to the earth,” he said. And the god, with a soft whimper through his gag, did so. It was compulsion, not obedience, but it was a delight to Tom. He hadn’t expected it, but the chore of containing the god forever in Tom’s keeping might not be without its pleasures.

 

****

 

Harry hadn’t grown up expecting to be God. In fact, he hadn’t grown up expecting much, aside from keeping himself fed and maybe one day being allowed his own small garden. In the citadel where candidates were raised, Harry never expected to rise through the rankings and have a serious chance at the Opportunity, nor did he really want it. The Opportunity was notoriously sacred and also notoriously mysterious, and sacrament and mystery were two of the things that made Harry most nervous.

Harry attended his classes, and enjoyed the reading assignments, though he lacked the confidence to truly throw himself into the essays and homework. He’d always preferred to hold back, just a bit, so that failure felt less like an absolute declaration of his ineptitude, but his grades were always fine.

He avoided extracurriculars. He was a bit of a natural athlete, with a quick, instinctive grace, but he was shorter in stature than the other children, especially when they first began playing, and preferred to support his friends — especially Ron, the twins, Dean, and Seamus — without competing with them for positions.

He liked the garden.

Occasionally the old man visited, which made the priestesses and priests nervous, though they didn’t like to admit it. When he visited, he tended to seek out Harry in the garden and sit there companionably awhile.

The old man had a long white beard. He liked Luna, too. And Hermione, and Cedric. Each of them had individual time carved out on each of the old man’s visits. But increasingly, he lingered with Harry. It flattered Harry, and, instead of yet another source of nervousness, he found the old man comforting too.

Once or twice Harry had tried to ask the old man about the outer world. Ron and the twins could get more information out of the priest Rapul than Harry ever could. Rapul was meant to be advising them on their path after the citadel, since upon graduation the Opportunity, for which they were all being groomed, could belong to only a handful. The brothers planned to go into a city filled with new people, to sell books -- and other things people read but the citadel didn’t stock -- in a special house for this purpose which they called a shop.

When Harry met with Rapul, invariably Rapul launched into long stories about his many failed attempts at gardening, and Harry was powerless to interject. He wished Rapul would choose a new topic for his filibusters, also, because it pained Harry to repeatedly imagine plots of plants tortured to death by various means.

Harry didn’t understand it. He surely wouldn’t be chosen for the Opportunity, so why wouldn’t Rapul help him? Did he think Harry totally helpless? Harry figured there were people who grew things out in the world, and hoped he could find a way to do that too. It would please him.

But when Harry’s generation was ready to graduate, though he remained safely, slightly above average in the rankings, the High Priestess called him into her office and frowned at him for a full five seconds. When Harry began to sweat a bit with nerves, she made a dismayed gesture and smiled at him. It was the most terrible smile Harry had ever seen, and couldn’t have appeared more forced.

“Congratulations, Harry. You’ve been selected for the Opportunity.”

The door behind Harry opened and the old man stepped inside. Harry was filled with a deep sense of betrayal. He wilted against the back of the little chair he’d been perched upon.

“It was you all along,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” said the old man. “I’m sorry if you feel deceived, Harry.” The old man’s light blue eyes were solemn. “Perhaps we could finish this conversation in the garden?”

Harry hadn’t particularly thought about whether he believed in God, but any doubts he had were laid to rest when the old man transported the two of them to a foggy paradise and showed Harry, high up in a spiraling ivory castle, a tremendous window down into the human world, where Harry saw a confusing riot of people and feelings and had to look away.

“When I die, and you ascend,” said the old man, “you will also acquire the power of my eye and the power of my voice. You will speak law, and see the truth in all you look upon.”

It sounded awful. “I just wanted to be a gardener.”

The old man’s palm cupped Harry’s shoulder, warm, but left Harry cold.

“I know, my boy, no one wanted this less than you. Which is why I had to choose you.”

Nine other people would receive the Opportunity with Harry as his Angels. It seemed like a lot of work for a handful of people, and Harry said so.

The old man, who was God, smiled. “There are many more angels. Unlike us, an angel lives forever, if they wish. In your army you will have the angels of many gods before you.”

Harry impulsively named his nine friends, relieved he didn’t have more. Then, he was immediately filled with doubt. What if he was pressing something upon them they didn’t want? He thought of Hermione’s fierce pursuit of academics and the brothers’ plans for a shop.

“Your friends will want to be with you,” God assured him. Harry was relieved to find that the old man was right.

And Harry was dismayed when, a week into life in the god’s palace and not the citadel, the god tumbled from the castle tower and Harry ascended.

The transformation was minimal, as Harry experienced it. He had always been cautious about what he said, which was good because speaking law was a serious matter, and not to be used facetiously. He looked upon his friends with combined delight and apprehension. There was in each of their hearts the slimmest measure of envy. Even Luna desired the power to see all the world’s history and all its present.

Harry did not cast his eye upon the window in the tower unless forced, which did occur more often than he would like, and typically when the old man’s favorite angel, Severus, towed him there by the collar and loomed over him until it was done. 

As it turned out, God could be as involved as they wanted to be, no more and no less. Benevolence also appeared to be optional, based upon what some of the angels tried to goad him into.

“You know,” said Arric one day, “the god _I_ came up with used to drop a plague every few years, just to be sure everyone down there was keeping up their prayers. It’s been _ages_ since we had a proper plague.”

Harry mumbled an excuse and found his way back to the safety of the Potter’s Shed, where he found himself spending an ever-increasing amount of time.

Time, at least, continued to pass, and though sometimes the angels who had been his friends were awkward and stilted around Harry, especially with respect to certain topics, they were still with him, and safe and cared for forever. He tried to make the most of it.

No one could ever honestly say they were _relieved_ to be kidnapped and forced by said kidnapper to decamp from heaven. But when his assailant drew Harry up against him with strong hands, and murmured commands into Harry’s ear in a forceful voice, Harry felt the first spark of real excitement in _years_.

As they sped down to earth, Harry weighed his options. He could summon an angel, the back-pocket power gods had always kept secret for apparent good reason. Once Harry had let slip to a pilgrim who offered him a jeweled mask that he couldn’t very well see the world’s truth with his eyes covered, and Severus lectured him for an hour. Later, when he was complaining to Hermione, she became tight-lipped.

 _Well,_ I _think Severus has a point. If people know upon what your power depends, you’re more vulnerable._

Harry was less than pleased to be proving her right.

Harry recognized the mortal realm by the smell. There was nothing to create unpleasant odors in heaven, but on earth, sweet-smelling air was hard to find. Harry knew by the eye-watering fetidness of his breaths that they were in a crowd, buffeted by other people and, along with the smell, assaulted by the low murmur of their ambient noise. He rubbed his ears and then, thoughtfully, rubbed his wrist, but he could not feel the object that the assailant had used to bind him. He wondered if it was visible.

The assailant still held him close at his side. “Come,” murmured the man, towing Harry along. Harry leaned into him, his thumb on the metaphysical trigger that would certainly spell rescue, but he didn’t pull it yet. He hated to worry anyone in heaven over his disappearance, but he wanted to see where all this could lead before he rained his angels down on his unfortunate kidnapper.

If the man was surprised to be obeyed, he didn’t betray it. Pressed this close, Harry’s omniscience was firing, despite the blindfold. His captor truly thought himself capable of pulling this off - that much was apparent even to Harry’s stifled powers of perception.

How fascinating that anyone could be so arrogant, Harry thought without rancor.

“I never expected a god to be so youthful,” murmured the man — Tom, Harry recalled, from looking on him before — into Harry’s ear, so Harry could feel his breath ruffle Harry’s hair and heat his sensitive skin. Harry shuddered.

So, arrogance wasn’t the only thing about Tom which Harry found fascinating.


End file.
